Poor Folk
informing us that in a week’s time it would be his Petinka’s birthday,
when, in honour of the occasion, he (the father) meant to don a new
jacket (as well as new shoes which his wife was going to buy for him),
and to come and pay a visit to his son. In short, the old man was
perfectly happy, and gossiped about whatsoever first entered his head.
My lover’s birthday! Thenceforward, I could not rest by night or day.
Whatever might happen, it was my fixed intention to remind Pokrovski
of our friendship by giving him a present. But what sort of present?
Finally, I decided to give him books. I knew that he had long wanted to
possess a complete set of Pushkin’s works, in the latest edition; so,
I decided to buy Pushkin. My private fund consisted of thirty roubles,
earned by handiwork, and designed eventually to procure me a new dress,
but at once I dispatched our cook, old Matrena, to ascertain the price
of such an edition. Horrors! The price of the eleven volumes, added to
extra outlay upon the binding, would amount to at least SIXTY roubles!
Where was the money to come from? I thought and thought, yet could not
decide. I did not like to resort to my mother. Of course she would help
me, but in that case every one in the house would become aware of my
gift, and the gift itself would assume the guise of a recompense--of
payment for Pokrovski’s labours on my behalf during the past year;
whereas, I wished to present the gift ALONE, and without the knowledge
of anyone. For the trouble that he had taken with me I wished to be his
perpetual debtor--to make him no payment at all save my friendship. At
length, I thought of a way out of the difficulty.
I knew that of the hucksters in the Gostinni Dvor one could sometimes
buy a book--even one that had been little used and was almost entirely
new--for a half of its price, provided that one haggled sufficiently
over it; wherefore I determined to repair thither. It so happened that,
next day, both Anna Thedorovna and ourselves were in want of sundry
articles; and since my mother was unwell and Anna lazy, the execution of
the commissions devolved upon me, and I set forth with Matrena.
Luckily, I soon chanced upon a set of Pushkin, handsomely bound, and
set myself to bargain for it. At first more was demanded than would have
been asked of me in a shop; but afterwards--though not without a great
deal of trouble on my part, and several feints at departing--I induced
the dealer to lower his price, and to limit his demands to ten roubles
in silver. How I rejoiced that I had engaged in this bargaining! Poor
Matrena could not imagine what had come to me, nor why I so desired to
buy books. But, oh horror of horrors! As soon as ever the dealer caught
sight of my capital of thirty roubles in notes, he refused to let the
Pushkin go for less than the sum he had first named; and though, in
answer to my prayers and protestations, he eventually yielded a little,
he did so only to the tune of two-and-a-half roubles more than I
possessed, while swearing that he was making the concession for my sake
alone, since I was “a sweet young lady,” and that he would have done so
for no one else in the world. To think that only two-and-a-half roubles
should still be wanting! I could have wept with vexation. Suddenly an
unlooked-for circumstance occurred to help me in my distress.
Not far away, near another table that was heaped with books, I perceived
the elder Pokrovski, and a crowd of four or five hucksters plaguing him
nearly out of his senses. Each of these fellows was proffering the old
man his own particular wares; and while there was nothing that they did
not submit for his approval, there was nothing that he wished to buy.
The poor old fellow had the air of a man who is receiving a thrashing.
What to make of what he was being offered him he did not know.
Approaching him, I inquired what he happened to be doing there; whereat
the old man was delighted, since he liked me (it may be) no less than he
did Petinka.
“I am buying some books, Barbara Alexievna,” said he, “I am buying them
for my Petinka. It will be his birthday soon, and since he likes books I
thought I would get him some.”
The old man always expressed himself in a very roundabout sort of
fashion, and on the present occasion he was doubly, terribly confused.
Of no matter what book he asked the price, it was sure to be one, two,
or three roubles. The larger books he could not afford at all; he could
only look at them wistfully, fumble their leaves with his finger, turn
over the volumes in his hands, and then replace them. “No, no, that
is too dear,” he would mutter under his breath. “I must go and try
somewhere else.” Then again he would fall to examining copy-books,
collections of poems, and almanacs of the cheaper order.
“Why should you buy things like those?” I asked him. “They are such
rubbish!”
“No, no!” he replied. “See what nice books they are! Yes, they ARE nice
books!” Yet these last words he uttered so lingeringly that I could see
he was ready to weep with vexation at finding the better sorts of books
so expensive. Already a little tear was trickling down his pale cheeks
and red nose. I inquired whether he had much money on him; whereupon the
poor old fellow pulled out his entire stock, wrapped in a piece of
dirty newspaper, and consisting of a few small silver coins, with twenty
kopecks in copper. At once I seized the lot, and, dragging him off to my
huckster, said: “Look here. These eleven volumes of Pushkin are priced
at thirty-two-and-a-half roubles, and I have only thirty roubles. Let
us add to them these two-and-a-half roubles of yours, and buy the books
together, and make them our joint gift.” The old man was overjoyed, and
pulled out his money en masse; whereupon the huckster loaded him with
our common library. Stuffing it into his pockets, as well as filling
both arms with it, he departed homewards with his prize, after giving me
his word to bring me the books privately on the morrow.
Next day the old man came to see his son, and sat with him, as usual,
for about an hour; after which he visited ourselves, wearing on his face
the most comical, the most mysterious expression conceivable. Smiling
broadly with satisfaction at the thought that he was the possessor of a
secret, he informed me that he had stealthily brought the books to our
rooms, and hidden them in a corner of the kitchen, under Matrena’s care.
Next, by a natural transition, the conversation passed to the coming
fête-day; whereupon, the old man proceeded to hold forth extensively
on the subject of gifts. The further he delved into his thesis, and the
more he expounded it, the clearer could I see that on his mind there was
something which he could not, dared not, divulge. So I waited and kept
silent. The mysterious exaltation, the repressed satisfaction which I
had hitherto discerned in his antics and grimaces and left-eyed winks
gradually disappeared, and he began to grow momentarily more anxious and
uneasy. At length he could contain himself no longer.
“Listen, Barbara Alexievna,” he said timidly. “Listen to what I have got
to say to you. When his birthday is come, do you take TEN of the books,
and give them to him yourself--that is, FOR yourself, as being YOUR
share of the gift. Then I will take the eleventh book, and give it to
him MYSELF, as being my gift. If we do that, you will have a present for
him and I shall have one--both of us alike.”
“Why do you not want us to present our gifts together, Zachar
Petrovitch?” I asked him.
“Oh, very well,” he replied. “Very well, Barbara Alexievna. Only--only,
I thought that--”
The old man broke off in confusion, while his face flushed with the
exertion of thus expressing himself. For a moment or two he sat glued to
his seat.
“You see,” he went on, “I play the fool too much. I am forever playing
the fool, and cannot help myself, though I know that it is wrong to do
so. At home it is often cold, and sometimes there are other troubles
as well, and it all makes me depressed. Well, whenever that happens, I
indulge a little, and occasionally drink too much. Now, Petinka does not
like that; he loses his temper about it, Barbara Alexievna, and scolds
me, and reads me lectures. So I want by my gift to show him that I am
mending my ways, and beginning to conduct myself better. For a long time
past, I have been saving up to buy him a book--yes, for a long time past
I have been saving up for it, since it is seldom that I have any
money, unless Petinka happens to give me some. He knows that, and,
consequently, as soon as ever he perceives the use to which I have put
his money, he will understand that it is for his sake alone that I have
acted.”
My heart ached for the old man. Seeing him looking at me with such
anxiety, I made up my mind without delay.
“I tell you what,” I said. “Do you give him all the books.”
“ALL?” he ejaculated. “ALL the books?”
“Yes, all of them.”
“As my own gift?”
“Yes, as your own gift.”
“As my gift alone?”
“Yes, as your gift alone.”
Surely I had spoken clearly enough, yet the old man seemed hardly to
understand me.
“Well,” said he after reflection, “that certainly would be
splendid--certainly it would be most splendid. But what about yourself,
Barbara Alexievna?”
“Oh, I shall give your son nothing.”
“What?” he cried in dismay. “Are you going to give Petinka nothing--do
you WISH to give him nothing?” So put about was the old fellow with what
I had said, that he seemed almost ready to renounce his own proposal
if only I would give his son something. What a kind heart he had! I
hastened to assure him that I should certainly have a gift of some sort
ready, since my one wish was to avoid spoiling his pleasure.
“Provided that your son is pleased,” I added, “and that you are pleased,
I shall be equally pleased, for in my secret heart I shall feel as
though I had presented the gift.”
This fully reassured the old man. He stopped with us another couple of
hours, yet could not sit still for a moment, but kept jumping up from
his seat, laughing, cracking jokes with Sasha, bestowing stealthy kisses
upon myself, pinching my hands, and making silent grimaces at Anna
Thedorovna. At length, she turned him out of the house. In short, his
transports of joy exceeded anything that I had yet beheld.
On the festal day he arrived exactly at eleven o’clock, direct from
Mass. He was dressed in a carefully mended frockcoat, a new waistcoat,
and a pair of new shoes, while in his arms he carried our pile of
books. Next we all sat down to coffee (the day being Sunday) in Anna
Thedorovna’s parlour. The old man led off the meal by saying
that Pushkin was a magnificent poet. Thereafter, with a return to
shamefacedness and confusion, he passed suddenly to the statement that
a man ought to conduct himself properly; that, should he not do so, it
might be taken as a sign that he was in some way overindulging himself;
and that evil tendencies of this sort led to the man’s ruin and
degradation. Then the orator sketched for our benefit some terrible
instances of such incontinence, and concluded by informing us that for
some time past he had been mending his own ways, and conducting himself
in exemplary fashion, for the reason that he had perceived the justice
of his son’s precepts, and had laid them to heart so well that he, the
father, had really changed for the better: in proof whereof, he now
begged to present to the said son some books for which he had long been
setting aside his savings.
As I listened to the old man I could not help laughing and crying in
a breath. Certainly he knew how to lie when the occasion required! The
books were transferred to his son’s room, and arranged upon a shelf,
where Pokrovski at once guessed the truth about them. Then the old man